The court arrested the property and accounts of the Google branch in Russia for 500 million

The Moscow Arbitration Court arrested the property and accounts of the Russian branch of Google LLC in the amount of 500 million rubles as an interim measure to the claim of the subsidiary of the Gazprom-Media holding on the restoration of the YouTube account. This is stated in the court ruling.

According to the document, the company filed a lawsuit against Google with a request to invalidate a unilateral refusal to post the content on YouTube from 2015. "GPM Entertainment Television" demanded to restore access to the UTUB channel and oblige the defendant to pay a judicial penalty.

The claims in the lawsuit are, in addition to Google LLC, also Google Ireland Ltd, Google LLC and Google Commerce Ltd.

In early March, the YouTube video hosting, owned by Google Corporation, blocked the channels of the Russian media that receive state financing, and turned off the channels of Russian bloggers from the monetization program, including YouTube Premium and YouTube Music. This was done against the backdrop of Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The locks of TNT and NTV television channels belonging to the Gazprom-Media holding fell under the lock. The press service of "Entertainment Television" then said that this decision is politically engaged and infringes on the interests of the audience in 70 countries.

• In 2021, the Moscow Arbitration Court granted a similar claim of the Tsargrad channel, the channel of which was removed from YouTube due to the sanctions imposed by the United States against its owner, businessman Konstantin Malofeev in 2014. On April 1, the press service of Tsargrad said that he received one billion rubles of a penalty from the Russian branch of Google.